Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Classé Debuts CA-D200 Class D Stereo Amplifier

Classé's new Delta series class D stereo amplifier, the 200wpc CA-D200, is now available.

Classé’s new Delta series class D stereo amplifier, the 200wpc CA-D200, is now available.

With Classé-designed switch mode power supply and switching amplifier stages, the Delta CA-D200 is the first class D amplifier to carry the Classé imprimatur.

“Processing and amplification—that’s what we do,” said Dave Nauber, president of Classé. “And the CA-D200 employs sophisticated processing and amplification technologies to deliver on the elusive promise of class D designs. It is the product of a design team with over 50 years’ combined experience in switching technologies.”

Classé says that DSP is used to optimize the performance of the system, lowering the dead-band-time—the gap produced when the plus and minus halves of the switching amplifier’s output stage are both off, and considered the Achilles heel of earlier class D designs—to a vanishingly low 3 nanoseconds or less. This in turn reduces distortion and noise, thereby enabling minimal use of overall negative feedback, which is said to further improve the amplifier’s sonic performance.

“Audiophiles sometimes prefer the sound of tube amplifiers, citing musical qualities that can’t be quantified in measurements,” said Nauber, “but on balance and for a variety of reasons, most of us choose solid state amplifiers. But like an excellent tube amplifier, the CA-D200 has something special going on musically speaking that defies quantification, yet it retains the benefits associated with solid state amplifiers. Most likely it’s a combination of its many innovative design features, but there is an engaging musical quality with this amplifier that is not completely explained by the standard measurements.”

The Delta CA-D200 is available in December and retails for $4,000 USD.

Close